Chapter 2: The Tavern's Jeer
The heat of The Gilded Tankard was a physical weight. Pipe smoke hung in blue-gray sheets beneath the low, blackened beams, and the roar of men’s laughter was a constant, jarring thunder. Aerewyna sat stiffly on the bench beside Liam, her knuckles white around a tankard of ale she had no intention of drinking. The portrait of some long-dead lord leered down from the velvet-draped wall, his painted eyes following her, a silent judge in a room full of cacophony.
“To the happy blacksmith!” bellowed Cormac, Liam’s burly friend from the docks. He slammed his own tankard down, froth sloshing onto the scarred wood.“And to his quiet, pretty bride! Though I’ve yet to hear if she sings, Liam.Does she sing? Or just sigh?”
The table erupted.Four faces, flushed with drink and firelight, turned their grinning attention to her. Liam’s arm was around her shoulders, a solid barrier, but she felt it as a cage. Her breath hitched. The tavern, the smoke, the leering eyes—it blurred into a different room, a different set of faces, colder and crueller but wearing the same hungry expression.
“Leave off, Cormac,” Liam said, his voice light but with a warning rumble beneath. He squeezed her shoulder.“Why? We’re all friends here,” said Fenn, a wiry carter with quick, darting eyes.“Just celebrating. Ain’t every day a common craftsman lassoes a creature so fine. Looks like a noble’s daughter, she does. Makes a man wonder what you had to teach her.”
Liam’s laughter was forced. “You’re piss-drunk.”
“Not too drunk to see she’s trembling!” Cormac leaned across the table, his breath sour with hops.“Cold, love? Come sit by the fire.On my lap. I’ll warm you.”
A memory detonated behind her eyes: Vane’s voice, smooth as oil, calling her to the center of the room.‘Show them how grateful you are, Aerewyna. On your knees.’ The tavern’s noise receded, replaced by the echo of aristocratic jeers. She was frozen, a rabbit in a ring of torchlight.
“No,” Liam said, the single word cutting through the chatter.“Oh, come now,” Fenn slurred. “Just a bit of fun.We’re all married men here.Our wives know the way of things. Let’s see if yours does.” His hand, quick as a snake, shot across the table and grabbed her thigh, fingers digging through her woolen skirt.
It was the touch that broke the spell inside her.A scream lodged in her throat, silent and burning. Her amber eyes flew to Liam’s, wide with a terror he had never seen—a hollow, historical terror that stopped his heart.
He moved.It wasn’t a thoughtful motion.It was pure, ignited reaction. His arm swept out, catching the edge of the heavy oak table and shoving it sideways with a screech of wood on stone.Tankards toppled.Cormac yelled as ale soaked his tunic. Fenn’s grip on her thigh was torn away.
Before the shouted protests could fully form, Liam had stood, hooked his hands under Aerewyna’s arms, and lifted her from the bench. He held her against his chest, her feet dangling, and turned his back on his friends’ stunned, drunken faces.“The fuck, Liam?” someone sputtered.He didn’t answer. He carried her, a precious, shattered burden, through the press of the main room, past the blurred faces and the sudden hush that trailed in their wake. The cool night air of the alley hit them like a blessing. He didn’t stop until they were deep in the shadows, where the only light came from a high, grimy window above.Gently, he set her on her feet. Her body trembled violently. He framed her face with his hands, his thumbs stroking her cold cheeks.“Aery. Look at me.”
She did, but her eyes were miles away, still trapped in that other room.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, the words raw, pressing his forehead to hers.“I’m so sorry. Those bastards… I didn’t see it coming.I should have.” His voice cracked. “You looked at me like you were drowning.”
A sob escaped her, a short, sharp sound of release. She leaned into him, her hands fisting in his tunic. “Don’t let them look at me,” she choked out.“Please.”
“Never.” The vow was absolute. He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, tasting salt.“They’ll never touch you. No one will.”
But the terror in her eyes had ignited something feral in him. The possessive heat from the library returned, twisted now with a violent need to overwrite that fear, to brand her with his protection, his adoration, to prove she was his in a way that had nothing to do with ownership and everything to do with sanctuary.His mouth found hers, and the kiss was not gentle. It was a claiming, deep and desperate, his tongue pushing past her lips. She responded with a wildness of her own, biting his lower lip, her hands dragging him closer. The taste of ale and fear and need mixed between them.He spun her, pressing her back against the cold stone wall of the tavern. The rough surface scraped through her dress.His hands went to her hips, gripping hard. “I need to be inside you,” he growled against her mouth, his voice thick.“Right here. Right now.”
She nodded, frantic, her own hands tearing at the laces of his trousers. “Yes. Please, Liam.”
He hitched her skirts up around her waist, the night air shocking on her bare skin. He fumbled for a moment, his calloused fingers sliding through her slick folds, finding her swollen and drenched.“Fuck,” he breathed. “Even after that… you’re so ready.”
He lifted one of her legs, hooking it around his hip, and guided himself to her entrance. He pushed in, not with the slow deliberation of the library, but with one relentless, deep thrust that stretched her, filled her, pinned her to the wall. She cried out, a sharp sound swallowed by the distant tavern noise.He didn’t pause. He set a brutal, punishing rhythm, each drive of his hips slamming her into the stone. It was a raw, physical argument against the memory of other hands, other eyes. His cock dragged against that perfect, sensitive spot inside her with every stroke, the pleasure so intense it bordered on pain.
“This is me,” he snarled in her ear, his breath hot.“Only me.You feel this? This is my cock in your cunt, Aery.No one else’s. Ever.”
The crude, filthy words, so different from Vane’s cold commands, shattered the last of her paralysis. They anchored her in the present, in the heat and sweat and overwhelming presence of the man she loved.“Harder,” she begged, her own voice a stranger’s. “Don’t stop.”
He obeyed, his thrusts becoming more frantic, his own control unraveling. The slap of skin, their ragged breaths, the faint scent of garbage and damp stone—it was all real, immediate, theirs.The coil in her belly wound tight, ready to snap.
“Come for me,” he demanded, his hand slipping between them to rub her clit in rough, perfect circles.“Let go. I’ve got you.”
The orgasm ripped through her like a lightning strike, violent and blinding. Her inner muscles clamped around him, a series of pulsing convulsions that stole her breath and sight. With a choked roar, he followed, his hips stuttering as he emptied himself deep inside her, his release hot and endless.
For a long moment, they stayed like that, pinned together by sweat and spent passion. He leaned against her, his head buried in her neck, his body trembling with the aftermath. Slowly, carefully, he lowered her leg and pulled out.He tenderly rearranged her skirts, his touch now infinitely gentle.
He cupped her face again, searching her eyes. The haunted look was receding, replaced by exhaustion and a fragile, dazed peace. “I’ll kill anyone who hurts you,” he said softly, a simple statement of fact.She believed him.They walked home in silence, his arm tight around her. The familiar sight of their cottage, the forge dark and quiet beside it, was a benediction. Inside, he stoked the fire and wordlessly brought her a cup of water, watching as she drank.
She stood by the hearth, staring into the flames, the ghost of the painted lord from the tavern finally fading from behind her eyes. Liam watched her, the quiet woman he adored, and for the first time, he truly saw the shadows that clung to her. He didn’t know their shape, not yet, but he knew their weight. And he knew, with a certainty that settled cold in his gut, that the man who put them there was still out there, somewhere in the dark.